David Cameron will today launch an attack on British businesses for putting profits first and giving "little thought" to their wider responsibilities to society.

In an echo of his criticism of fashion houses for encouraging the "inappropriate sexualisation" of children by selling padded bras to young girls, Cameron will criticise the media and marketing industry for "irresponsible" initiatives.

"We saw a cheap booze free-for-all, justified on the argument that it was good for growth, with little thought about the impact on law and order," he will say. "We saw an irresponsible media and marketing free-for-all justified on the argument that it was good for growth, with little thought about the impact on childhood."

The PM's remarks about alcohol are aimed at bars and clubs attracting customers by offering free or discounted drinks.

His remarks about the media and marketing illustrate, as he claimed in February, that he is still concerned about the way children are targeted by companies selling "Lolita beds and the padded bras and the rest of it". He is also worried about discounted chocolate sold by shops such as WH Smith.

Cameron will make his remarks today when he announces that the government is asking the Office for National Statistics to devise ways of measuring wellbeing in addition to tracking economic growth. He will invoke a famous speech by Robert Kennedy, made during the 1968 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, in which the US politician said that GDP did "not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play".

The PM adds: "It is high time we admitted that, taken on its own, GDP is an incomplete way of measuring a country's progress. The big problem is that it doesn't show you how growth is created.

"When a country is hit by an earthquake, that can increase GDP, because of the extra spending on reconstruction afterwards. When a city is torn apart by crime and disorder, that can increase GDP, because of all the extra locks and security people buy. When a person falls ill, that can increase GDP, because the cost of buying drugs and paying for care counts as economic activity. Destruction, crime, disease – in a very crude way, all these things can amount to progress in terms of GDP."

Cameron will stress that economic growth is still essential. "Growth is the essential foundation of all our aspirations. Without a job that pays a decent wage it's hard for people to look after their families in the way they want, whether that's taking the children on holiday or making home a more comfortable place."

But he will also insist that it is not "impractical" to measure wellbeing. "Let me address the suspicion that all this is a bit airy-fairy and impractical. Of course you can't capture happiness on a spreadsheet, any more than you can bottle it. If anyone was trying to reduce the whole spectrum of human emotion into one snapshot statistic, I would be the first to roll my eyes."